The successful integration of materials into engineered devices often requires the precise tailoring of their surface physico-chemical properties. In the case of glasses and inorganic oxides, these properties can be precisely adjusted by the reactive deposition of a molecular or polymeric coupling agent. Coupling agents are generally organic-inorganic hybrid molecules with one or several reactive moieties (often chloro- or alkoxy-silanes, or cyclic azasilanes) and a non-reactive fragment that will introduce the desired property (such as a PEG chain for hydrophilicity, a perfluoroalkyl chain for hydrophobicity/oleophobicity, etc.).